Our Personal Story

Owner operator Nikeeta Singh (a qualified and experienced teacher – over 16 years) and husband Dr Darius Singh (a former university Professor) both come from humble beginnings with their parents migrating to NZ almost 50 years ago, in search for better opportunities for their children, and carrying little more than pocket change with them, with which to build their lives here. They each grew up understanding one powerful thing from watching their parents struggle and work up to 100 hour weeks in day and night jobs to make ends meet. That one thing was the power of “HOPE”, as their parents persevered in hard work and sacrifice in the “hopes” that one day their children could have a better life, more opportunities, and turn dreams into realities.

Today, 40 years later, Nikeeta and Darius continue that vision from both their parents, by sharing “MESSAGES OF HOPE” to families throughout their four inspirational childcare centres, that all aim to “provide children with more amazing experiences and opportunities than anyone’s ever had growing up”. This became their simple vision statement for what would later become the Chrysalis Group of Early Learning Centres. Their vision was more that just a wishful “tick-box” statement – there was a powerful personal drive to achieve this – and they would do it by designing and creating world class, award-winning, & “never-seen-before” learning environments where they could proudly send their own preschool children to – and did (the ultimate litmus test!).

Their blog on “Behind the scenes of ‘childcare like never seen before” in August 2018 (seven years since starting), finally reveals in detail, all the “behind the scenes” meanings for everything they have done in each of their inspirational centres and for everything they have been recognised nationally and internationally for.

“We started with one of our family values which is ‘Honouring the past…Visioning the future’”, says Nikeeta, “…inspired by our parents’ values and visions of hope, we wanted to pass that same powerful message of hope to today’s families by creating never-seen-before preschools that their children could experience. So we found ourselves designing luxurious play areas, and unique sustainable building concepts with solar power and rainwater harvesting systems, and learning spaces that look like the inside of a cocoon, and reading & sleeping nooks inside a giant fern tree, and large Kiwi backyard & Pacific village inspired outdoor areas, and we even went as far as designing cot & sleeping rooms where our babies could look up at a projection of soft twinkling starlight from galaxies, constellations & random shooting stars across the night sky!”.

“We then jumped into the future and continued to add personal touches and modern facilities like audio visual systems to enhance children’s dance and music experiences, KIDCAM® for parents’ peace of mind as they view our rooms from reception, and learning portfolios with our exclusive patented Learning Roots and Shoots® program that visualises children’s progress as new leaves and branches growing on their personalised online trees. We hoped these things and more would make any parent wish they could go back in time and re-live kindy all over again and its these personal wishlists together with our dream-team of teachers that we hope will make our unique centres become one of the most talked about early learning centres, raising the bar in NZ and around the world…”

When they founded the Chrysalis Group in 2010, Nikeeta and Darius merged the knowledge and experience of three generations of teaching history in both their families, into awe-inspiring places of learning for families in the local communities of Otumoetai (Tauranga), Blockhouse Bay (Central Auckland), Grafton / Newmarket (Auckland City), and Avondale (West Auckland). They have created childcare centres that are among the most inspiring, innovative, and imaginative early childhood education centres in NZ. In following their parents’ footsteps to create “visions of hope”, they too worked over 100 hours each week for five years since 2010 (almost every waking hour) designing and developing the “childcare like never-seen-before” features and reputation they now have earned for their inspirational and multi-award winning childcare environments.

“…it’s really humbling to have the international accolades, national awards and neighbourhood trust by hundreds of families, but what we want you to know is that it all just stems from our core family foundations that simply holds on to hope for our next generation. It’s a real privilege for us to pass this message on and try to show these core values, visions, and outcomes to you and your child every day…”

Nikeeta and Darius Singh

Spacious & “never seen before” playground design in our popular Chrysalis centre (located on Rosebank Rd, and serving Wesst and North West Auckland suburbs)

Industry leader: Among the first solar powered ECE centres at Chrysalis (Rosebank Rd, serving West and North West Auckland suburbs) and Magic Kingdom (Blockhouse Bay, serving West and Central Auckland suburbs).

A relaxing rainforest entrance walkway with birdsong playing from the gardens, transports you away from the busy city and into our magical place at our popular Magic Kingdom centre (Blockhouse Bay, servicing Auckland Central and West suburbs)…

Our unique “rain or shine” outdoors where children can play all year round at our popular Fern Garden centre (Otumoetai Rd, serving all Tauranga suburbs)

An oasis in the heart of the city, where our parents can pop over from work during lunch times at our popular small Milky Way centre (Khyber Pass Rd, Newmarket and serving Auckland City areas)

Our Philosophies,
Values, Vision & Mission

Our core philosophies

“A ‘chrysalis’ is a protected stage of development, where care is first and foremost, followed by development and transformations that are calm and unhurried, yet filled with wonder and amazement”

“Our children are being prepared to learn throughout life – to open endless opportunities and continually create, innovate, change and improve”

“We work in close partnership with parents and whanau in a consistent and warm learning environment to support, strengthen and successfully achieve first milestones in life”

“We are preparing children to be our future guardians of a sustainable world with respect to and guidance from our bicultural heritage and multicultural society”

Our core values

“Respect for children, caregivers, and colleagues”

“Openness with one another”

“Empowerment of others”

“Believing in yourself”

“Integrity in all we do”

Our simple vision

“To give children in our centres more amazing opportunities and experiences than we ever had”

LEADERSHIP: “To foster innovative and new ways to support, strengthen, and successfully deliver core teaching curricula and first lessons in life”.

Our Charities, Partnerships
& Affiliations

Charities we donate to:

We have a standing commitment to the following charities and a further commitment by owners Nikeeta and Darius to double all proceeds raised in all our charity events:

Autism NZ

Blind Foundation

Cure Kids

Muscular Dystrophy Association of NZ

SPCA

St John

Starship Hospital – Child Cancer Foundation

World Vision (we sponsor 5 children in a small remote village in Malawi).

Schools we partner with:

Our Centres have strong Partnerships with the following:

Supporter of our local communities in Avondale (where Nikeeta and Darius first met 25 years ago), Blockhouse Bay (where they grew up!), Grafton / Newmarket (where they went to school), and Otumoetai / Tauranga (where they lived for a while).

Partnerships with over 30 primary schools surrounding all our centres.

Special bond with over 1000 local students and whanau in nearby primary schools (Avondale, Rosebank, St Mary’s, Waterview) for their wish lists and design inputs into our unique Pasifica / Kiwi “play-garden” playground.

Industry bodies we are affiliated with:

We proudly promote, model and demand the highest expectations of “world class” performance in childcare and we are personally active members of the following organisations:

We host free parenting seminars EXCLUSIVE to our parents and families in our all our centres – with internationally well-known speakers from The Parenting Place. Some recent presentations have been “Top 10 do’s and don’ts of Parenting”and “Raising resilient children”. Feedback is always excellent as revealed on our testimonials page for each centre.